The White House says comments from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “disqualify” him from the presidency.

This after Trump made banning all Muslims, whether immigrants or visitors, from entering the U.S., a key policy plank in his campaign.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says the policy is unconstitutional, and by pushing it, Trump has invalidated his candidacy.

“The fact is that the first thing a President does when he or she takes the oath of office is to swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States. And the fact is that what Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as President.”

Earnest went further, suggesting that other Republican candidates who have sworn to back Trump if he wins the party’s nomination are by association also disqualifying themselves.

“The question now is the rest of the Republican party, and whether they’re going to be dragged into the dustbin of history with him.”

Trump announced the policy on Monday, following the terror attacks in San Bernardino, California.

He claims there is a wide hatred for Americans among the global Muslim population, and says the policy is needed until representatives “can figure out what is going on.”

It follows a string of highly criticized comments directed at Muslims, including a suggestion all Muslims be registered in a government database, that mosques be placed under surveillance, and that New Jersey Muslims cheered the 9/11 attacks.

Legal question

Josh Labov, a PhD candidate in political geography at Simon Fraser University, says Trump is within his constitutional rights to say what he wants.

“Based upon the comments he’s made, he is merely a buffoon and a threat to democracy. He actually becomes dangerous to democracy once he’s elected.”

Labov says if that happens and Trump moves to actually enact something like a ban on Muslims, he would run into trouble.

“But if he was president and he chose to misinterpret the constitution, particularly in inflammatory ways, there would be a congress and there would be a judiciary that would be there to oppose him and to check him and to balance him. If that was continued, obviously there is an impeachment protocol in the United States to remove a leader.”

He says the most dangerous aspect of the Trump campaign is not the divisive rhetoric but how Americans are reacting to it.

I wonder how White House can disqualified people , isn’t there something like “ freedom of speech “ . If candidates would be disqualified for being stupid – there wouldn’t be much of the race . US as well as our local politicians made that clear so many times. I think this is just playing politics and media coverage. Thanks for helping

Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences. You can say whatever idiotic thing you want but you accept the backlash. That’s actually how freedom of speech is supposed to work. It’s meant to be self regulating.

How can anyone find anything he says as irrational? You got to be pretty suicidal to object to the facts that Trump is stating. What is wrong in closing borders to Muslims until the nation can get a better grasp of the security situation? It’s completely necessary and rational. People object to it because they imagine Islam can never do what it has done to 49 countries around the world.

But he can ban people based on their country of Origin . . . as Jimmy Carter did in the late 70s when he banned ALL travel from Iran . . . of course the Echo from the lame-stream Media back then was silence !

Trump is just stating what a lot of Americans feel and believe. The righteous left had better realize that WW111 started some time ago and Islam is the enemy. Drastic times demand drastic actions, unfortunately. As to the W.H. Obama has been an unmitigated failure and disaster. American foreign policy is in disarray , US allies have been ignored and white / black relations in the US is the worse it has been in years. Trump may well be what is needed Certainly that duplicitous, deceitful and unqualified , soon to be felon,Hillary is not what the Americans need in these times…

No supporter of Donald Trump, but I find it more than little interesting that the administration chooses not to label DJT’s comments as ‘hate speech’, thus triggering a legal process to test such a wild claim. It chooses instead to make unconstitutional statements about Mr. Trump’s eligibility to stand for president, a public office he is clearly permitted to hold. Interesting double-standard these days re: freedom of speech.

It’s equally interesting that they chose to state that such unconstitutional statements negate his eligibility to stand for president. Considering what Obama has done over his term in office, I can only assume that once one is president it’s quite okay to commit unconstitutional actions or bring in laws that are essentially unconstitutional.

Let me list what I can remember off the top of my head . . . there are many more !
Stopped the expulsion of Illegals through Illegal Exec Order . . .
Stopped the Implementation of the Corporate rollout of ObyCare . . . cause it would have damaged his Re-election chances . . . through Illegal Exec Order . . .
Gave Amnesty to thousands of Illegals and forced the Border Guards to admit them . . . through Illegal Ecex Order . . .
He took all references out of CIA and FBI training Manuals to Al Queda, Izzlamic Radicals, Terrorism etc . . . through Illegal Exec Order . . .

And we have not even gotten into how he stiffed up racial strife by jumping into numerous situations before he knew Any of the FACTS ! ! !

Trump may be “out there” with his speech , but looking at what is going on in the USA right now.
You can clearly see an electorate clearly divided.

The dems have been an absolute failure.
Record unemployment among black men , even after the 08-09 crash. Trillions spent on social programs with no effective change in employment.

People have had enough. They want change.
Hillary is a moron coward. Blamed a tv movie for the benghazi attack . Which had nothing to do with it. She and the mighty obama have taken a soft approach to isis .

Russia will be the force that destroys isis in syria. They attack all targets unlike the yanks who have set such restrictive rules that most all if the yanks missions can’t be done for fear of collateral damage.

Isis has been selling oil to turkey for ages now. The refinery they used had miles of tanker trucks waiting. The yanks knew about this and dropped flyers to tell isis to stop.

Russia came is and blew it up.

Dumb SH#T policies like that will kill the dems.

Also TRUMP has freedom of speech on his side and can say what he wants.

Don’t go to Rand Paul or Fox news for polls….there goes your credibility…These are “Private” polls, not affiliated with Fox or Rand Paul…Sorry, I know you love Bernie and MSNBC and CNN lol ….You have NO Credibility, you are uneducated in real world affairs…

You dismissed a Pew Research poll out of hand because the site that was reporting on it didn’t support your political ideology.

You could have clicked through to the actual study and examined/rebutted it on its merits, but instead you looked only at the URL of the site discussing the Pew research.

This sort of abysmal stupidity has become standard operating procedure for the modern reality-hostile left, and it is a revolt against this cheapness of dialogue that has propelled Trump to the top of the polls.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says the policy is unconstitutional, and by pushing it, Trump has invalidated his candidacy.

“The fact is that the first thing a President does when he or she takes the oath of office is to swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States. And the fact is that what Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as President.”

Seriously?! And you tell me what has kept the present so called commander if chief in office?! When he is more about being politically correct afraid of maybe offending then running our country and keeping us safe from terrorist. All he has talked about in the last 4 years is gun control ! THE ONLY way we are going to be able to defend ourself and keep this country safe is to have a way to fight these people! I honestly believe he wants everyone sitting ducks to be taken over without anyone being able to fight them! YOU tell me how is this keep us safe by taking away our only ability to do so?! Now you want to talk about someone being invalid to run for president- tell me why the hell is Haillary allowed to run when she should have been in jail for grand larceny when she stole from the white house, what about Bengazi Oh yeah those deaths are still on our minds and you people have the nerve to call out Trump? I may not be a Trump supporter at this time , it’s get awful close to being 1. I am tire of being politically correct when they don’t give a damn about my feeling or anyone elses when we see a terror attack on our soil and the only thing he can say is don’t judge other muslims or islamic people for the actions of a few?…A little prejudice is you ask me where was this speech when 9 black people was killed in SC ? Didn’t hear him saying don’t judge all whites for the actions of one..hell no you didn’t… sick an tired of his crap ! …

Kind of ironic that the type of voters who support Trump fiercely oppose gun control because of specific rights spelled out in their cherished constitution, yet have absolutely no problem ignoring that same constitution when it comes to discriminating against ‘brown people’.

And Obama has been the BEST GUN SALESMAN IN US HISTORY . . . more citizens have bought personal weapons in the last 7 years than any time in History.
And the good news is . . . the more guns in the hands of Law Abiding Citizens . . . the LOWER the CRIME RATE.

Your reference to the Harvard study is rather lame considering the publication is a student edited, non peer reviewed publication that bills itself as a “forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.” The article was written by 2 gun lobbyists making unsubstantiated claims. “The paper itself is not a scientific article, but a polemic, making the claim that gun availability does not affect homicide or suicide. It does this by ignoring most of the scientific literature, and by making too many incorrect and illogical claims.” On the other hand, “analyses that controlled for several measures of resource deprivation, urbanization, aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, and alcohol consumption found that states with higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide victimization rates for children, and for women and men. In these analyses, states within the highest quartile of firearm prevalence had firearm homicide rates 114% higher than states within the lowest quartile of firearm prevalence. Overall homicide rates were 60% higher. The association between firearm prevalence and homicide was driven by gun-related homicide rates; non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership.” Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center Dr. David Hemenway.

“Armed crime, never a problem in England, has now become one. Handguns are banned but the Kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals have no trouble finding them and exhibit a new willingness to use them. In the decade after 1957, the use of guns in serious crime increased a hundredfold. In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law-abiding enough to turn them in to authorities.” But crime increased instead of decreasing.

Obammies White House has been Trampling the Constitution for 7 years now . . . . starting with the election of the foreign student from Columbia.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is one of the dopiest to ever hold his position . . . knows nothing about everything and never has a straight answer.
Obamy’s talk to the folks the other night was the First in FIVE YEARS . . . most detached, incompetent President in the history of the USA. And, of course the BIGGEST Spender, having outspent the previous 43 Presidents ALL ADDED TOGETHER!

The Dems took over Congress in 2007 . . . they had no budget for several years and had several 1 Trillion dollar + deficits . . . certainly year to year spending went down from there but was still in the 600 Billion annual deficit or larger mode . . . yet would be considered a CUT.

GUESS WHO President Carter BANNED From Coming to US During Hostage Crisis
Here’s Jimmy “Hitler” Carter saying it back in 1980.
Fourth, the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.
Apparently barring people from a terrorist country is not against “our values” after all. It may even be “who we are”. Either that or Carter was a racist monster just like Trump.

The arrogance of the Barry O’Bomber administration exceeds all bounds. Not even FDR, not even Richard Nixon (he of the “enemies list” believed that the President has any power to say who may and who may not run for the office. I doubt that this idiot press secretary has even read the Constitution (I have, btw). His claim that someone’s “views” are “unconstitutional” is laughable (apparently he missed the First Amendment…). His desire to bring back guilt by association is vicious (fancies himself George III, much?). Or perhaps he just can’t tell time: Trump hasn’t taken any oath of office yet to be in violation of.

What’s clear is that every member of the Obama administration HAS taken that oath, and every day forswears it. The Constitution sets very specific bounds on the powers of the congress, and the Presidency (See Article I, Section 8 to start) and very severe outright restrictions on them (see Amendments I-X, and XIII). These limits are continuously flouted by this administration – and, to be fair, just about all of the others in the last 150 years. Just the other day CKNW reported that Mr. Obama wants to revoke the Second Amendment rights of all those on the (secret) “no fly” list. Well, he has no constitutional authority to do that, nor does anyone else. There’s also no provision for secret enemies lists in the constitution. Nor for Presidential “security” meetings every day to decide what American citizens may be murdered by drone strikes. But that doesn’t stop him (nor did it stop George Bush) nor apparently anybody else. There are, just as an example, over 60,000 victim disarmament laws at all levels of government in the USA. The Second Amendment does not have an “except” clause in it. Therefore, each of those laws is unconstitutional (there is a clause stating that the Constitution and the laws issued in accordance with it trump – if you’ll excuse the expression – any act passed by any lower level of government, since they’re bound by the Constitution, too) and yet all of these people want not only to enforce the hell out of the existing ones, but are keen to pass ever more.

Let’s be clear here. I think Trump is a moron and a vicious asshole who Americans would be really stupid to elect President. However, I have little hope they won’t – or elect someone else equally stupid, of either party. I’m tired of hearing American politicians wrap themselves in their Constitution, when the only real use they have ever made of it – in their entire careers – is as toilet paper!

Looks like you have gotten quite a conversation going on this. Good for you. Good work incorporating video and links to related stories. This takes radio reporting to another level. so glad that digital reporters can add more depth to bite sized news.